Programmers are often products of the American Dream.  They have the ambition to do things better, to better their lives.  Many are self-educated and started in some other profession.  They go after the grand opportunities of the software industry and internet startups, following the amazing stories of Microsoft, Google, and others.  Once they know software, the next step may be to code up their great idea for an application and create a solo startup, called a micro ISV (Independent Software Vendor).  Suddenly, they aren't concerned with creating great software as much as marketing and selling it.

By any definition, this is a kind of culture shock.

A budding micro ISV has total control over building their product and answers to no one.  Marketing means explaining the "obvious" to people you don't know, who can check out your competitors instantly, who may not trust you even though you are as solid as a rock.  Unless you got your degree in Marketing or Business and then decided to become a programmer, this is like falling into the void of unknowns.

How do you bridge this chasm?

My strong recommendation is to get your copy of Bob Walsh's "MicroISV Sites That Sell! - Creating and Marketing your Unique Selling Proposition", read all 89 pages, do the suggested exercises and checklists, and then you will know what to do.  You will know it is the right thing because the book has several case studies of very successful micro ISVs.  You might want to spend some time on the accounting part of your business after you spruce up your website.

Bob's book is actually an ebook in PDF format.  It costs $19 and you get it nearly instantly.  Even if you know a bit about marketing, it is great to have this material written specifically for programmers and set out in a structured format.  So you are saving time and money before you start selling, and if you can sell more following Bob's advice, well, that's the whole idea.

-- Walter Lounsbery, 2-21-2008

After the latest round of Vista updates completed installing on my workstation this morning, I noticed a nice bonus.  The mouse pointer now erratically displays that little busy symbol (the blue donut) near the pointer, several times a second.  It sits there, blinking erratically, even if no applications are doing anything.  I've shut down everything I can and that sucker still blinks away.  It is irritating as hell, and it makes me suspicious of erratic activity at a much deeper level.

Frankly, Microsoft, I hate writing posts like this.  Can you try to, you know, improve my experience with your products for a change?

-- Walter Lounsbery, 2-14-2007

A couple of days ago, I threw in the towel on BitDefender Antivirus.  I suffered long enough.  I stuck with it until is almost made my workstation unusable.  Today, I have taken the first step to eliminate Vista Media Center from our living room.  I doubt if I'll be purchasing an Apple TV soon, so at least I am not contemplating developing for the Dark Side or even coding for Penguins.

But once upon a time, Windows XP Media Center seemed like a neat development platform.  So I installed that and used it.  Discovering that XP Media center was composed of a massive cluster kludge, I patiently waited for the wonders of Vista Media Center.  A year later, and with the addition of some new "features", Vista Media Center is just a larger kludge.  The bugs are amazing, the user experience uneven, the crashes and lack of simple commonsense features just boggle the mind.  I really don't know how my "TV" is going to work from week to week, as those wonderful automatic updates roll out and sometimes reboot my TV.  I would rather saw off a limb with a dull blade than write code for this platform.

I'd like to emphasize the term "TV" because that is what the Media Center replaces.  It is just that simple.  The channels come into the room on a cable, the video is on a DVD, I want to watch those things because that's what TVs do.  The music and pictures are totally secondary if my TV doesn't do cable or videos.  Furthermore, that TV ought to be future proof.  I expect my TV to last 20 years.

So already, Media Center fails badly.  Despite promises from Microsoft two years ago, the cable industry is not going to allow me to see HDTV on my Media Center.  I have to buy a new Media Center, because that's the only way to get licensed and approved CableCard tuners.  And that machine is about twice the price it ought to be.  Comcast, my cable provider, has to tightly control the installation of the CableCard into my Media Center.  They have to send out a technician, which destroys several days and makes your employers mad (We barely let you away from the desk for the friggin' flu, you want to take off a second day because the Comcast tech mixed up his schedule?  How about permanent time off?).  I have an HDTV slaved to stupid low resolution analog signals.  With this amazing cooperation on the Media Center platform, who is believing IPTV delivery is going to happen in their lifetime?

It gets even worser.  Lisa and I love to watch movies, which are on wonderful things called DVDs.  Apparently, the movie studios, Microsoft, and the graphics card manufacturers are in a complex elephant dance.  If you read all the trade magazines, you may have a hint of the details as they unfold.  The bottom line is that current DVDs do not play on my Media Center.  DVDs issued before, say, October last year are just fine.  DVDs from major studios after that won't even play the hour of previews before the actual film.  I've played the video driver and encoder upgrade game over the years, but now I've lost the race with the elephants.  They've disabled my DVD player in Media Center.

Today I hooked up an old, cheap DVD player to our HDTV in the living room.  Amazingly, it plays the new DVDs. 

We will be outfitting our Game Room in the basement soon, here are some choices:

1. Get a reconditioned XBOX360.  We can play games, DVDs, and use it for a Media Center Extender (basic cable analog TV).  That might choke the network if any other video needs to be carried.
2. DirecTV has great deals with more channels, HDTV, and multiple DVRs.  We dump the overpriced Comcast service.  We could eliminate any need for Media Center or Media Center Extenders.  Any computer in any room can play music, show pictures, and share files across our home network already.  I get another server for development work.  The XBOX 360 Media Center Extender in the bedroom goes to the basement as a game machine.
3. Get another cheap DVD player and hook up to analog cable in the basement.  Do without DVR functionality.
4. Build another Media Center computer, get another cheap DVD player, and hook up to analog cable in the basement.

Gosh, it doesn't look like I have much choice, really.

-- Walter Lounsbery, 2-13-2008

Lisa and I worked very hard to buy our home in the Knoxville area.  After we decided to move to the area last year, we built a list of things we wanted and reworked it continuously.  Our list was ambitious and flexible.  We were also doing a lot of property searches on the Internet before we went to Knoxville to get a good look at them, so we knew we could not get everything we wanted at the price range we could deal with.  We still went to lots of homes before finding the best fit.

Every home we looked at was unique.  We found surprises that we didn't like.  One house had a detached two-story garage that looked great from the street, but inside of the second story of the garage was razed by a fire that may have done structural damage.  One home had a great basement, which turned out to be extended by a garage addition and a hideous renovated floor layout in the upper story (5 bedrooms, one slightly bigger than a closet.  The narrowest master bedroom I've ever seen outside of a trailer home).

In the case of our home, we are still getting surprised as we do renovation.  Back when we first drove up to the property, we found that it was within a few miles of the Bull Run Steam Plant.  This is a modern, clean, coal-burning power plant on the Clinch River.  While this would put off a lot of people, it seemed that the nearby plant would allow us to escape the usual electric power problems of semi-rural living.  Let the wind blow and the ice storms pass, we would be safe or at least first in line if the power lines needed repair.

Last night, we found that we were vulnerable to power outages.  About 5 PM the lights dimmed and the computer backup power supply alarms were going off.  At 5:20 the power totally went out.  Fortunately power was restored by 6 PM.  The winds managed to blow some trees onto power lines, there were reports that one got tangled in a 150-foot tall power line tower.

If you think about it, we never depended on total reliability from the power company.  That's why there are backup power supplies for the computers.  As they say, be prepared.  Lisa did not appreciate my joke about buying a backup generator last night, though.

As I think about last night's event it's hard to stop thinking about fixing the situation.  The vital systems of the house are the heating and refrigerator.  We've got blankets, does anyone make a UPS for refrigerators?

-- Walter Lounsbery, 2-13-2008

I treated Lisa to a fascinating and entertaining evening at the Knoxville Zoo's Jungle Love event Saturday night (Feb. 9).  This adults-only event started off with a tour of the penguin habitat.  A tent was set up nearby for beverages.  As small groups went to the back of the penguin exhibit, the rest were treated to informal talks about the penguins and close up visits from a falcon and a desert fox.

The main event was held in a zoo conference room, with plenty of food and well decorated table settings.  Some low resolution cell phone photos from the event can be seen in my Spaces photo album.  After we had a chance to partake of the buffet, Kevin talked about various aspects of attraction and mating in the animal kingdom.  He did a great job and it was a lot of fun.  During the presentation, various animals were carried around the tables so we could get a close look at them.  The tarantula, boa, huge rainforest frog, and mole rats got the attention of some people, who took refuge by pretending to go back for seconds at the buffet.

Lisa and I are Knoxville Zoo enthusiasts now.  I bought her a Growl-in-tine, which is a donation in the adopt-an-animal tradition.  She got a stuffed toy version of the animal, a picture of the animal, some Zoo materials, and a certificate of appreciation.  Since Lisa and I are tall, we sponsored a giraffe. 

We are looking forward to the Zoo's Feast With the Beast event, which will be in late Summer.  The Zoo has a number of other events that we will likely attend.  Although the Knoxville Zoo is smaller than some, the people there are enthusiastic and there is a nice variety of animals.

If you are looking for something special for your sweety next year, check out the Knoxville Zoo's Jungle Love!

-- Walter Lounsbery, 2-11-2008

I've been dealt some harsh lessons over the years.  The sort of things that people euphemistically call "life lessons."  I guess that's because, if you got the lesson you must still be alive.  In the sense that a career or income greatly influences quality of life, there are also lots of life lessons in economic disasters, career choices, and the actions of corporate overlords.

The computer or software industry can be particularly harsh in dealing out life lessons.  There was a great focus on the changes and fallout from the Great Internet Bubble around the year 2000.  Anyone working in the industry knows that this industry churns like no other.  Companies come and go, product lines are subject to fickle marketing ideas, software may stop operating or interoperating with some quiet patch release.  One day you may enjoy many of the free services of the Internet, the next your email history, pictures, and all public Internet information could be wiped off the network.  One day your retirement investment in Pets.com looks very rewarding, the next you are making sock puppets for a living.

So when Microsoft radically changes their mature (opened October 2006) Microsoft Office Live products ("Microsoft axes paid versions of Office Live Small Business", Mary Jo Foley), I wonder if it is a signal.  Particularly because I use this service, I've studied developing solutions with it, and the changes have not been communicated to current Office Live Small Business customers like me.  In fact, a couple of weeks ago I got email from Microsoft describing some system upgrades, but nothing about this radical change after that.

To the extent that I'll have to carefully study the changes to the service and determine how that affects the developer/solution provider options, this is a lot more than a signal.  It is literally game changing.  It is also a clear signal that nearly all Office Live services are subject to radical change. Until Microsoft declares otherwise, it may be impossible to base even the most casual development on their services.

I think that this is also a quiet signal about Microsoft corporate strategy.  Taken with the very controversial Yahoo acquisition and product choices in the last year, there is a definite feel that Microsoft has begun doing things without concern for the consequences, that it has a strategy that is not driven by real goals or principles.  There is no mission statement, just a set of whims.  Has Microsoft divorced itself from reality?  We can debate the meaning of these signals and actions.  Microsoft can spin their actions as they wish.  It is likely that there will be drastic changes to the company and its products by the end of this year.  I don't think we will know much about it until it happens.

-- Walter Lounsbery, 2-11-2008

Late last Summer, I installed BitDefender Antivirus on my primary workstation.  I was attracted to the product by its relatively low price, the ability to install on two workstations instead of just one, and the fact that it wasn't Norton or McAfee.

Antivirus software has been around for a long time, and I've seen many versions and situations over the years.  The fact is, virus detection requires very low-level hooks into the operating system and scanning of every relevant change of the filesystem and sometimes system behavior itself.  Virus prevention also requires deep integration to kill or quarantine a running virus before it does some damage.  All this scanning, monitoring, and access to large virus signature databases means that your computer will eventually become dedicated to running the antivirus program, your other applications will be secondary things.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about antivirus programs, from a developer standpoint, is their capability to run well after they are installed.  The bad ones, though, eventually slow down your computer.  The worst will actually interfere so much that your applications will fail randomly, maybe even the operating system itself.  But I know that programs are usually deterministic and consistent.  The only way this behavior can change over months, going from benign to deadly, is if the antivirus program is intentionally written badly or written to screw up your system gradually.

I have to call it as I experienced it: BitDefender Antivirus is one of those bad, bad, bad programs.  The last few months, before uninstalling BitDefender, I had continual failures in Internet Explorer and sometimes other programs.  My Vista error log had entries every day.  The operating system would occasionally reboot without notice.

After removing BitDefender, Vista seems stable and is certainly a lot faster.  This is really remarkable when you consider I'm running a quad-core system with lots of horsepower.  BitDefender made it slow and undependable.

If you are in the sad situation of using BitDefender, and decide to remove it, you may be in for quite a treat.  BitDefender hung my whole system during the uninstall process.  After forcibly turning the system off and rebooting, all the BitDefender files were still resident on the computer, I could not resume the uninstall, and all the autostart bits were running.  I used the awesome Autoruns utility from Microsoft/Sysinternals and that allowed me to turn off the damn thing and remove it. 

In a sense, BitDefender is like a virus itself.  It slowly damages your system and then won't leave when asked to.  It's too bad that Vista is rigged to nag you to install any kind of crapware like this so that it can be "secure."  A good firewall and sensible email and Web browsing are just as effective and don't destroy the utility of my computer.

Let me leave you with some antivirus advice from the enterprise.  One company was running various web applications, databases, and ecommerce websites from a firewall-isolated area of their network.  The infrastructure staff had their own idea of best practices, and decided to install server antivirus software on those machines.  This is not your garden-variety consumer antivirus software, it costs thousands of dollars.  OK, maybe the price is the only real difference.  All the websites slowed to a crawl in very short order and the antivirus software was quickly removed.  The customers were happy using the websites again, while a good lockdown on ports and firewalls (plus some other magic) was sufficient protection.

-- Walter Lounsbery, 2-11-2008

If you looked at my resume, you wouldn't have a clue about my earliest career ambitions.  Like many techheads, I was a voracious reader as a child.  Sometimes I would read ten or more books a week.  While school was in session.  I also read the humor column in the Kansas City Star.  Maybe thanks to my reading, I wanted to be a fiction writer long before the flying bug hit (airline pilot) and reality set in (aerospace engineer) and then the Big Layoff (computer programming).  In the fifth or sixth grade, I taught myself touch-typing on my Mom's manual typewriter and set to work on my first unfinished novel.  Although I wanted to do a novel, I still had great respect for newspaper columnists, those imaginative, prolific writers that could produce something every day.

Although blog feeds are my new reading, the traditional columns like Dave Barry's still amaze me.  If you don't know about Dave, you should also check out his Website.  He's written a great column for over 25 years, published 30 books, had a TV show based on two of his books, and so on.  Dave is the definition of prolific.

With inspiration like Dave and a host of blog feeds (Chris Pirillo for one), you would think I'd have published at least a book or two and a blog entry every day.  But I think that is actually the big difference between my efforts and theirs.  I think their great skill is to work hard writing material that is easy to read, day after day.  I don't work at it, I write about special events or when inspiration strikes. 

The truth is, inspiration can be a poor source of motivation.  It requires a filter.  If you have seen blogs that report on how many pieces of junk mail someone got that day, or celebrated the occasion of trimming their toenails, you have seen blogs with mundane inspiration and absolutely no filtering.  Believe it or not, I attempt to write something that could be interesting to somebody else, somewhere in the world.  But filtering ideas can be so effective that all good ideas get blocked.

And then there's the risk of blogging about contemporary events.  I blogged about the fat ultralight transition a lot, because I think it affects thousands of people and it represents a rare milestone in general aviation.  I blogged about Twitter, because I just started using the service.  It seemed to me that others might be curious about the service.  My experiences might be helpful for other people.  OK, it was also a way to work off some frustration.

Now those two things have run their course and my blog posts have dwindled.  Where is my new inspiration?  Have I set my filter so strictly all the good ideas are blocked from publication?

What would Dave Barry do?

-- Walter Lounsbery, 2-8-2008